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Saturday, 30 November 2013

A
nuclear reactor at Korea’s Kori Nuclear Power Plant was temporarily
shut down at 1:18am on November 28 for apparent problems with its
generation system.

The
operator, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, said there was no
immediate danger of a radiation leak.

Kori
Reactor 1, the country’s oldest nuclear reactor, began commercial
operation with a generation capacity of 580,000 kilowatts in 1978.
Its original 30 year lifespan expired in June 2007 but was extended
by 10 years in early 2008. This year the reactor went under a
maintenance check for 176 days and resumed operation on October 5.

The
temporary shutdown of the Kori reactor raises an alarm of power
shortages in the winter, increasing the number of nuclear reactors
out of commission for maintenance or inspection to six. South Korea
currently operates 23 nuclear reactors that generate about 30 percent
of its total electricity supply.

To
make the situation worse, microscopic cracks in control rod tunnels
at another were found hours after this reactor was shut down. The
cracks were found in six out of 84 tunnels that guide the control
rods at the Hanbit No. 4 reactor in Yeonggwang, Jeolla Province,
about 350 kilometers southwest of Seoul.

The
operator, state-run Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power, said the cracks
were found during a scheduled maintenance, adding that they do not
pose any radiation risks, but could delay the resumption of operation
by about 10 days. The operator had planned to resume the operation of
the reactor on January 1 next year, when the scheduled maintenance is
completed.

Certainly
a great rant. This guy can certainly talk non-stop and is not short
of an opinion or two. How much of what he says can be substantiated I
can't tell. For one I don't think that Fukushima is producing
super-storms unless there is some extra energy in addition to the
warmin oceans that I don't know about.

Canadian
denied entry to the US after agent cites private medical records

A
wheelchair-bound Canadian woman was denied entry to the United States
this week because she was previously diagnosed with clinical
depression. Now she wants to know why the US Department of Homeland
Security had her medical history on file.

The
Toronto Star’s Valerie Haunch reported on Thursday that 50-year-old
author Ellen Richardson was turned away from the city’s Pearson
Airport three days earlier after DHS officials said she lacked the
necessary medical clearance to cross into the US.

“I
was turned away, I was told, because I had a hospitalization in the
summer of 2012 for clinical depression,’’ Richardson
told the Star.

The
woman, who has been paraplegic since an unsuccessful suicide attempt
in 2001, was planning to fly to New York City to start a 10-day
Caribbean cruisein collaboration with a March of Dimes group,
and had already invested around $6,000 into the trip, she told the
paper.

“I
was so aghast. I was saying, ‘I don’t understand this. What is
the problem?’ I was so looking forward to getting away . . . I’d
even brought a little string of Christmas lights I was going to
string up in the cabin. . . . It’s not like I can just book again
right away,"
she said.

But
according to what American officials told her, it would take the
permission of US government-approved doctor and around $500 in fees
in order to enter the country. Richardson soon left the airport
defeated, but only afterward did she begin to raise questions about
what the DHS knew about her.

"It
really hit me later — that it's quite stunning they have that
information,” she told CBC.

Richardson
said she has been on numerous cruises since 2001, and traveled
through the US for all of them. Only this week, however, did the DHS
cite the June 2012 hospital stay, spawning questions about how much
personal information American officials hold on foreign persons.

According
to Richardson, the border agent told her that the US Immigration and
Nationality Act allows the government to deny entry to anyone with a
physical or mental disorder that may pose a “threat to the
property, safety or welfare,” and that her “mental
illness episode’’ from last year warranted extra
attention.

“The
incident in 2012 was hospitalization for depression. Police were not
involved,’’
her attorney, David McGhee, told the Star, adding that he approached
Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews as well “to
tell me if she’s aware of any provincial or federal authority to
allow US authorities to have access to our medical records.”

“Medical
records are supposed to be strictly confidential,” McGhee
said.

"We
don't know how deep the connection is between US customs" and
Canadian authorities, Richardson’s member of Parliament, Mike
Sullivan, told CBC. With her story quickly going viral, however,
others hope to soon find out the full scope of the data being managed
by the DHS.

“This
is scary,”
MPP France Gelinas told the Star for a follow-up published Friday
morning. “They
got access to information that should never have been accessible to
anyone.”

“Canadians
must be assured that their personal records are kept confidential, as
intended,” Sullivan
added to Hauch’s latest report.

As
RT reported previously,
employees of the DHS’ Transportation Security Administration, or
TSA, have access to huge databases, both federally and privately run,
which contain information on travelers including tax ID numbers, past
itineraries and even physical characteristics. As for hospital visits
in other countries, however, Richardson and others generally expect
that information to be not on file.

According
to Star reporter Jack Lakey, an Ontario health ministry official said
Thursday that US authorities “do not have access to medical
or other health records for Ontarians travelling to the US.”

“If
the province didn’t knowingly hand over the information, it only
leaves the federal government as the source, possibly in some kind of
information sharing agreement with the US that we aren’t supposed
to know about,”
Lakey speculated. “Given
its recently revealed complicity in allowing the U.S. to spy on G8
and G20 leaders when they gathered here in 2010, it is no stretch to
believe Ottawa is also playing ball with them on this.”

“The
reactor buildings still contain large amounts of spent fuel –
making them a huge safety risk and the only protection from a future
tsunami, Wyden observed, is a small, makeshift sea wall erected out
of bags of rock.”—Senator Ron Wyden (OR), after visit to
Fukushima

.
. .

”Scientists
say that there is a 70% chance of a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hitting
Fukushima this year, and a 98% chance within the next 3 years.”

The
alternative media is buzzing with concern over the precarious
situation of Fukushima 4, literally balanced on a knife-edge after
the initial earthquake and tsunami, but the commercial press
maintains near-silence.

Click
below to listen to this segment of a popular KPFA radio program to
learn more.

Unfortunately,
it’s hard for radio programs to publish transcripts of their
content, so the material can’t be found in Google or referenced. So
I can’t quote from yesterday’s Flashpoints program, I can only
ask you to take a moment and listen to at least the beginning of it.
If Disappeared News had time to do radio, I would want it to be like
Flashpoints with Dennis Bernstein. But he’s already doing it. So
please have a listen.

The
first part of the program is an update on how dangerous Fukushima
Reactor 4 is, with Dr. Michio Kaku.

As
Dennis says, “hold on to your seats and stay tuned.”

The
program mentions the impossibility of evacuating Tokyo’s 30 million
people, representing 20% of the country’s population. The
consequences of further nuclear disaster at Fukishima extend far
beyond Japan, of course.

(This
animation was left on the server and found by randomly typing in
guesses for the URL address. Note that the ocean releases used for
this model appear to end soon after 3/11. This means the daily
release of 400 tons of radioactive water that’s
likely been ongoing since the disaster began is not being accounted
for.)

Contaminated
soil gets washed away by the high winds and rain and deposited in
streams and rivers, a joint study by France's Climate and
Environmental Science laboratory (LSCE) and Tsukuba University in
Japan showed.

An
earthquake-sparked tsunami slammed into the Fukushima plant in March
2011, sending reactors into meltdown and sparking the worst atomic
accident in a generation.

After
the accident a large number of radioactive
particles were
flung into the atmosphere, dispersing cesium particles which
typically cling to soils and sediment.

Studies
have shown that soil erosion can move the radioactive varieties of
cesium-134 and 137 from the northern mountains near Fukushima into
rivers, and then out into the Pacific Ocean.

The
typhoons "strongly contribute" to soil dispersal, said
Evrard, though it can be months later, after the winter snow melts,
that contamination actually passes into rivers.

Local
populations who escaped the initial fallout two-and-a-half years ago
could now find their food or water contaminated by the cesium
particles as they penetrate agricultural land and coastal plains,
researchers warned.

Last
year, the radioactive content of Japan's rivers dropped due to fairly
moderate typhoons. But more frequent and fierce storms in 2013 have
brought a new flood of cesium particles.

This
is, said Evrard, "proof that the source of the radioactivity has
not diminished upstream".

Tsukuba
University has completed a number of studies on Fukushima since
November 2011.

Scientists
"concentrated mostly on the direct fallout from Fukushima yet
this is another source of radioactive deposits"
that must be taken into account, Evrard warned.

Coastal
areas home to fishermen or where people bathe in particular face a
potential risk.

Tens
of thousands of people were evacuated from around the Fukushima plant
following the disaster and nearby villages and towns remain largely
empty as residents fear the risks of radiation.

The
delicate process of decommissioning the site is expected to take
decades.

AFP:
Scientist warns of new flood of radioactive particles around
Fukushima

FP,
Nov. 28, 2013: Typhoons that hit Japan each year are helping spread
radioactive material from the Fukushima nuclear disaster into the
country’s waterways, researchers say. [...] “There is a definite
dispersal towards the ocean,” LSCE researcher Olivier Evrard said
Wednesday. [...] Local populations who escaped the initial fallout
two-and-a-half years ago could now find their food or water
contaminated by the cesium particles as they penetrate agricultural
land and coastal plains, researchers warned. [...] more frequent and
fierce storms in 2013 have brought a new flood of cesium particles.
This is, said Evrard, “proof that the source of the radioactivity
has not diminished upstream”. [...] Scientists “concentrated
mostly on the direct fallout from Fukushima yet this is another
source of radioactive deposits” that must be taken into account,
Evrard warned. Coastal areas home to fishermen or where people bathe
in particular face a potential risk. […]

Evolution
of radioactive dose rates in fresh sediment deposits along coastal
rivers draining Fukushima contamination plume,
Oct. 29, 2013: We show that coastal rivers of Eastern Fukushima
Prefecture were rapidly supplied with sediment contaminated by
radionuclides originating from inland mountain ranges [...] [The
study authors] suggest that storage of contaminated sediment in
reservoirs and in coastal sections of the river channels now
represents the most crucial issue. [...] Significant wet and
dry radiocaesium deposits occurred on 15-16 March 2011, leading to
the formation of a strong contamination plume over a distance of 70
km to the northwest of FDNPP. The area where soil contamination
exceeds 100 kBq m−2 of 137Cs was estimated to cover ca. 3000 km2
[…]

Fukushima:
Watch impact of container being dropped during test here (27 November
2013)

‘Crazy,
dynamic, unpredictable’ comet ISON still glowing, but is it still
alive?

The
unpredictable behavior of the ancient ISON comet has scientists
scratching their heads, as the world’s space agencies had to
quickly backtrack from their earlier claim that it had been destroyed
in its encounter with the sun.

The
2km-wide relic has been traveling to meet our star for over a million
years. But the “dinosaur bone of solar system formation,” as
senior research scientist at Johns Hopkins University, Carey Lisse,
dubbed it, did not shine as bright after its slingshot encounter
around the sun on Thursday, forcing scientists and stargazers to
conclude the celestial body had lost its tail and nucleus.

Karl
Battams of NASA wrote on the space agency’s dedicated ISON blog
about the confusion that the celestial body has caused.

“After
impressing us yesterday, comet ISON faded dramatically overnight and
left us with a comet with no apparent nucleus,” Battams said, also
mentioning the deluge of calls he and the team had received from
reporters, despite not being able to provide them with 100 percent
clarity.

“As
the comet plunged through the solar atmosphere, and failed to put on
a show… we understandably concluded that ISON had succumbed to its
passage and died a fiery death. Except it didn't! Well, maybe...,”
he continued.

There
were conflicting theories about the comet’s fate, but what emerged
later in the photographic evidence forced everyone to backtrack.

The
assumptions were dictated by the fact that traveling just over a
million kilometers above our star’s surface would have melted all
the comet’s ice at temperatures of over 2,000 degrees Celsius,
while the sun’s magnetic field would have strongly influenced its
behavior as well.

But
claims of the ISON’s demise were later challenged with photographic
evidence, as scientists saw a faint, but still bright glow of what
they believe to be a piece of the comet.

Battams
then went on to describe “a faint smudge of dust” visible in the
images taken after the comet’s apparent exit from behind our star,
which showed the faint glow traveling along ISON’s orbit. Admitting
this could simply be a speck of dust, hopes were not high. However,
the glow did not disappear.

“Now,
in the latest LASCO C3 images, we are seeing something beginning to
gradually brighten up again. One could almost be forgiven for
thinking that there's a comet in the images!”

“We
have a whole new set of unknowns, and this ridiculous, crazy, dynamic
and unpredictable object continues to amaze, astound and confuse us
no end,” Battams finished, asking everyone to be patient with
further guess work. He added that if the glow is indeed the comet, we
will be seeing it in the night sky in a matter of days.

NASA
was not alone in retracting its earlier assessments: the European
Space Agency stepped back from its earlier claims of ISON’s end as
well.

However,
scientists do not wish to make any further predictions as to its
future at this point, because the comet could still just as easily
stop releasing material and die out, if it indeed has not burned up
after encountering the sun’s corona.

-
ISON stands for International Scientific Optical Network

-
Discovered September 2012 by two amateur Russian astronomers

-
Originated in the Oort Cloud, about halfway from the sun to the next
star

-
Its age is about 4.5 billion years, like our solar system, where it
originated

-
Studying the comet should help our understanding of planet formation:
when comets are destroyed from brushing close to the sun, the
resulting vapors give clues of their chemical composition

Mainichi,
Nov. 27, 2013: The ruling coalition’s ramming of a controversial
special state secrets bill [...] through the House of Representatives
on Nov. 26 has stunned the public. [...] it could discourage citizens
as well as journalists from seeking access to such information for
fear of harsh punishment, blocking government information from
circulating in society [...]

Japan-based
Investigative Journalist Jake Adelstein,
Nov. 29, 2013: [...] even politicians inside the ruling bloc are
saying, “It can’t be denied that another purpose is to muzzle the
press, shut up whistleblowers, and ensure that the nuclear disaster
at Fukushima ceases to be an embarrassment before the Olympics.”
[...] And most tellingly, Masako Mori, the Minister of Justice, has
declared that nuclear related information will most likely be a
designated secret. For the Abe administration this would be fantastic
way to deal with the issue of tons of radiated water leaking
[...] There seems to be no end to stopping the toxic waste leaks
there but the new legislation would allow the administration to plug
the information leaks permanently. As [it] continues to pour into the
ocean and our food supply, it is an ominous sign that the Japanese
government refuses to disclose information about the levels of
pollution [...]

Mainichi,
Nov. 27, 2013: Under the bill, ordinary citizens who aid and abet or
conspire with others in leaking information classified as special
state secrets could face up to five years in prison even if the
information were not actually revealed. If citizens were indicted for
obtaining special secrets under the legislation, they could be
convicted without the content of the information being clarified.

Mainichi,
Nov. 27, 2013: One of the [Fukushima] residents angrily said, “How
far are they going to go in fooling us?” [...] a member of
the Diet’s investigation committee on the Fukushima nuclear
disaster, said, “I hope information involving the lives of
residents will not be made secret.”

Bellona,
Nov. 29, 2013: [...] The current condition of the Fukushima Daiichi
plant is precarious – arguably worse off than it was directly
following the initial catastrophe [...] seemingly continuous leaks of
highly radioactive water [...] The disposition of the fuel in the
melted down reactors is unknown [...] no real consensus on what on
what might stop or at least diminish the leaks of some 400 metric
tons a day of radioactive water into the Pacific. [...] it’s
understandable that Abe would like to stuff a sock in the bad news
[...]

“Stuff
a sock in the bad news”? Indeed…

EXSKF,
Nov. 29, 2013: A citizen was forcibly removed from the balcony in the
Diet where he was observing the debate [...] as he shouted his
opposition to the passage of the law. His mouth was stuffed with
cloth so that he couldn’t shout any more [...]

ST.
LOUIS COUNTY (KSDK) - There are
radioactive secrets beneath the banks and waters of a north St. Louis
County creek that may be linked to a staggering number of cancers,
illnesses and birth defects. In four square miles, there are three
reported cases of conjoined twins and cancer rates that one data
expert says is statistically impossible.

About
two years ago, Janell Wright and several of her class of '88 McCluer
North High School friends started wondering why so many of their
peers were battling cancer.

"Where
it got to be suspicious is when we had two friends diagnosed within a
couple of months of each other with appendix cancer. And both people
were told that is a one in a million cancer," said Wright.

Wright,
an accountant and former auditor, started collecting data from her
classmates. Soon, peers from neighboring schools reached out too.

"On
Facebook, it just took off like wildfire. People started reporting
their cancers and auto immune diseases," Wright said.

At
first she found 30 cases. Within two months, she had data on 200
cases. Now, her maps have more than 700 cases in four square miles,
including:

Wright
became equally alarmed when data showed some of her classmates'
children had serious medical problems too.

"The
children usually came down with brain cancer in the first 15 years of
life, in addition, leukemia. In my peer group's children, there were
several children who had to have their thyroid removed before they
were 10-years-old," she said.

Strange
coincidence or was something else at play? Another classmate, Diane
Whitmore Schanzenbach, is an economist at Northwestern University.
She ran her own analysis and found the likelihood of so many cancers
among her high school peers was .00000001. Schanzenbach called it a
statistical improbability.

Connected
by Facebook, high school, and illness, the classmates made a
startling discovery. The creek where they played as children carried
a secret.

In
the 1940s, Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in downtown St. Louis purified
thousands of tons of uranium to make the first atomic bombs. But the
process also generated enormous amounts of radioactive waste.
Sighting national security, the government quietly ordered the
material moved to north St. Louis County in 1947.

Twenty-one
acres of airport land became a dumping site where a toxic mixture of
uranium, thorium, and radium sat uncovered or in barrels. In the
1960s, government documents noted contents from the rusting barrels
were seeping into nearby Coldwater Creek. And by the 1990s, the
government confirmed unsafe levels of radioactive materials in the
water.

"You're
having to grasp this idea that something was wrong. Nobody knew about
it. Our parents didn't know, nobody knew," said Wright.

Wright
recently shared her data with the Army Corp of Engineers, which
monitors the creek.

Members
of the Facebook group want the CDC to investigate their data and
determine if there is a cancer cluster. They are currently trying to
build their case in hopes of getting to the truth.

Wright
hopes she is wrong about the cancer cluster and link to Cold Water
Creek. Her greatest fear is that she is right.

Based
on the latest data, the Army Corp of Engineers reports there is no
contamination threat to current homeowners. And monitoring of the
creek continues.

Thirty
people recently filed suit against Mallinckrodt and other companies.
A spokesperson for Mallinckrodt, which is now owned by Covidian, said
Mallinckrodt was not involved in the disposal or cleanup of the
nuclear waste. Lynn Phillips from Mallinckrodt's Media
Relations issued the following statement:" "The
St. Louis Airport Site was used for disposal of demolition debris
from buildings decommissioned and demolished nearly 50 years ago by a
third party demolition contractor under the oversight of the U.S.
government. Some of this debris was from buildings formerly used for
uranium processing dating back to the 1940s at a Mallinckrodt site in
St. Louis. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in coordination with the
Department of Energy is now responsible for the environmental
remediation of the St. Louis Airport Site, which includes Coldwater
Creek, under its Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program.
This remediation is nearly complete. Mallinckrodt is not involved in
the remediation activities that have been conducted at the St. Louis
Airport Site. "

Glenn
Greenwald on sharp form, as ever, and the BBC interviewer, on this
occasion Stephen Sackur, on woeful form, as ever.

The
last five-minute exchange, starting at about 19.20 mins, when Sackur
ends up defending Britain’s security services against Greenwald’s
charge that they lied during the Iraq war, is simply jaw-dropping in
its asinine, dangerous complacency.

How
do these BBC mouthpieces have the nerve to call themselves
journalists?

“We
are not giving up despite these harsh weather conditions, sacrificing
time with our families, our jobs, our homes, not only to protect
land, water and people but to ensure a brighter future for the next 7
generations. We are asking for more support, through road blocks to
be in solidarity. This is not just an Elsipogtog issue, this is a
global issue and we need to raise awareness. Show us support any way
possible, sending thank you’s, road blocks, banners, even dropping
by, all and every type of support is appreciated.”

The
3rd encampment in Mi’kmaq Territory, at HWY 11, which saw stand
off’s between the Mi’kmaq peoples protecting the water and RCMP
protecting corporate interests, is requesting widespread global
support.

The
Provincial Court of New Brunswick has approved an injunction which
names 5 people, including “Jane” and “John Doe”, to target
the HWY 11 encampment. This encampment has successfully turned away
SWN vehicles and is preventing SWN from conducting seismic testing on
unceded Mi’kmaq lands. Each day that SWN cannot conduct its
testing, it costs the company $54, 000. SWN is once again looking to
the RCMP to enforce the injunction most recently granted. At this
time, the RCMP have used the injunction to target the Mi’kmaq and
have set up a “check point” on HWY 11, where the RCMP stop
vehicles to arrest passengers and drivers at their whim.

We
remember the last time the RCMP enforced an injunction against the
Mi’kmaq people. As seen historically, the RCMP will continue to
enforce the violation of treaties and attack Indigenous
self-determination. At this time, the RCMP are not only harassing
Mi’kmaq Land Defenders and non-Native supporters, but continuing to
throw them in jail. On Thursday, November 28th the Mi’kmaq again
turned SWN away – declaring another day of victory. They are
standing up against brutal police repression, and continued theft of
Indigenous lands and ongoing colonization. Show them they are not
alone!

On
Monday Dec. 2nd HWY 11 Land Defenders are asking you to show your
solidarity by taking action in your community. Where possible,
highway shutdowns are encouraged however any action of support, such
as banner drops, are welcome.